Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/117

continued to hold as though she would never again let it go, "see what they have done to this hand! There are great scars as though nails had been driven through the palm, and"—as she held up the other, more for his own than her inspection—"the other is just like it! My poor boy! What you must have suffered!"

The keen feminine intuition of the woman sensed the quieting of the man's perturbed brain, sensed the soothing, calming influence that swept over him as he studied his scarred palms.

"My hands," he breathed contentedly.

"Yes, your hands, John," she murmured happily, pressing his arm, "John!"

"John?" the man queried, still studying his palms, "John?"

"You don't—" began the woman awkwardly, "you haven't forgotten your own name, have you? John—John Ransome. Don't you remember?"

"John," he repeated slowly, "John Ransome. It seems easy to say, but I don’t remember. I—I don't think I ever heard it before. You say it used to be my name?"

His wife nodded, swallowing hard to keep back the tears, "Not only, 'used to be,' John; it is now. It's your name now!"

The man looked at her a moment, then with the intense singleness of purpose of the dying man who clutches grimly at whatever yet remains to him of this life, looked back at his scarred hands. He made no reply.

"Surely you haven't been without a name. You've been working here, haven't you? You must have given some name?"

The man nodded. "Yes," he said, "I did give a name when I got this job. I—I knew I wasn't like other people. I seemed to have no past at all. Everything was so dark, so hazy and uncertain behind me. I—I didn't want to tell them I had no name; so when they asked me I just gave the first name that came into my mind."

"And what was that, John?"

"William Forsythe."

AT the York Assizes in 1803, the clerk to a mercantile house in Leeds was tried on a charge of forgery, found guilty, and condemned to death. His family in Halifax was very respectable, and his father, in particular, bore an excellent character. Immediately after the sentence was passed upon the unfortunate young man, a dissenting minister of the Baptist persuasion, who had long been intimate with the father, presumed to address his Majesty in a most moving petition, soliciting the pardon of the sop of his friend. Fully aware that it had been almost an invariable rule with the government to grant no pardons in cases of forgery, he had little hopes of success; but, contrary to his expectations his petition prevailed, and the reprieve was granted. That the solicitation of a private individual should have succeeded, when similar applications, urged by numbers, and supported by great interest, have uniformly failed, may excite surprise and deserves particular observation. The following circumstances, the veracity of which may be depended upon, fully explain the singularity of the fact. In the year 1802, a dignified divine preaching before the royal family, happened to quote a passage illustrative of his subject from a living author, whose name he would not mention. The king, who was always remarkably attentive, was struck with the quotation and immediately noted the passage for an enquiry. At the conclusion of the service, he asked the preacher from whom that extract had been taken, and being informed that the author was a dissenting minister in Yorkshire, he expressed a wish to have a copy of the original discourse, The royal mandate was accordingly imparted to the author, who lost no time in complying with it, accompanying the work with a very modest letter, expressive of the high sense he entertained of the honor conferred upon him. His Majesty was so well pleased with the production, as to signify his readiness to serve the author. The case of the above young man soon afforded this amiable and disinterested minister an opportunity of supplicating at the hands of the monarch, the exercise of his prerogative of mercy, in favor of the son of his friend, as the greatest favor his Majesty could confer.

Peter Peutemann was a good painter of still-life; but a most memorable circumstance relating to this artist was the incident which occasioned his death. He was employed to paint a picture of an emblematical representation of mortality, expressive of the pleasures of this world, and of the shortness and misery of human life; and that he might imitate some parts of his subject with greater accuracy, he painted them in an anatomical room, where several skulls and bones lay scattered in profusion about the floor. Here he prepared to take his designs; and, either from previous fatigue, or the intenseness of his study, he fell asleep. This was on September 18, 1692, when an earthquake, which happened while he was dozing, roused him, and the instant he awoke he perceived the skulls rolling about the room, and the skeletons in motion. Being totally ignorant of the cause, he was struck with such horror, that he immediately threw himself down stairs in the wildest desperation. His friends took all possible pains to efface the dreadful impression from his mind, explaining the true cause of the agitation of the skeletons; nevertheless, his spirits received so violent a shock, that he never recovered his health, but expired soon after, aged forty-two.